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BELLA VOCE is the official newsletter of the Michigan chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. The mission and purpose of the newsletter is to provide a vehicle of communication from the board of directors to the membership. In addition, the newsletter seeks to provide articles on professional topics of interest to Michigan choral directors. Repertoire and Standards committee chairs are required to contribute one article per year, due in September, as part of their responsibilities. District chairs are required to report on interesting news in their districts. The newsletter strives to be self-supporting through advertisement in the publication. Members are invited to submit articles, calendar information, news releases, literature suggestions, book and recording reviews, and editorial comments to the editor. All submissions for publication are to be typed and should include the name, address, phone number, photograph, and short autobiography of the author. Materials may also be submitted electronically as WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or plain text files. E-mail should have BELLA VOCE in the subject line heading. ACDA-Michigan reserves the right to refuse any article, to edit any application for appearance, and to edit all materials proposed for distribution. Bella Voce – 2010
Our choral art is unlike any other because of one aspect above all: the inescapable presence of text. The real impact of choral music comes from the power of text, because text is where story dwells. As a result, we must convincingly tell the story of each song we offer. What makes this possible is…
ACDA Michigan is proud to showcase the talents of some of our own composers at our conferences! Here are websites for the Michigan Choral Composers who are participating in the 2013 Fall Conference or who participated last year. (Not all of the composers have websites.) This year: Marjan Helms: www.marjanhelms.com Sean Ivory: www.caldwellandivory.com Greg Jasperse:…
Wow! What a nice list! Last year your ACDA-MI board determined that one of the most helpful things we could do to for our members is to provide you with repertoire suggestions. We have noticed that repertoire lists posted on this site always get more “hits” than any other articles. Therefore your R & S chairs…
The writer C. S. Lewis, a devout agnostic in his youth, became convinced of the claims of faith only after a protracted struggle, the outcome of which left him “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” The ultimate cause of Lewis’ change of heart became the title of his autobiography as well: against…
So you have decided to start a children’s choir – now what? There are loads of resources for you out there! Here are a few tips and suggestions to get you started. Where to Begin? First you will need to get some choir members. Are you going to take any interested children or do you…
Perhaps in a perfect world it’s possible to conduct a rehearsal without a single mistake. But experience and human nature suggest that this goal is a fantasy, no matter how devoutly we might wish otherwise. In the real world, mistakes are a part of life. Despite our best efforts to prevent them, mistakes will still…
When I was an undergrad at Western Michigan University, Dr. Joe Miller gave a lecture on the importance of owning quality choral CD’s (I guess now it would be MP3s). His lecture had two main points: 1) Recordings are always going to be expensive, so you should start collecting right away. 2) Quality recordings help…
Screwtape Maleficus, DMA (as told to Gerald Custer) 2013 is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Clive Staples Lewis, author of the Screwtape Letters, a collection of infernal advice from a senior devil to his nephew Wormwood, an apprentice tempter. In Lewis’ honor, Screwtape has agreed to release the previously unpublished correspondence that follows. …
I retired after 34 years of teaching secondary choral music. It was a bit unexpected, but at the last moment, in a financial and familial sense, it became clear it was the right decision. It was painful to accept leaving the students, the program, the classroom, the profession. What does one do after 34 years…
I’m a full-time musician at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’ve been at the church for 6 ½ years, but I’ve been in church music pretty much all of my life. Here are some of my favorite Lenten pieces for a mixed choir. “O Vos Omnes”– Pablo Casals This is my favorite Lenten…
